Travelling through Lima

Lima is the capital city of Peru situated in western South America. Public transportation system in Lima serves the people well but it must not be compared with transport system in USA or Europe. In general international tourists complain of the quality of transport as well as its management.

The gray bus system is known as Metropolitano bus system which run on natural gas. These buses have a dedicated lane when they use the metropolitan highway. Travellers can enter these busses on designated bus-stops which are usually elevated having escalators and stairs using chip cards for convenience. This will soon be supplemented by metro train lines serving Lima and Callao. Lima has “Micros” as the usual transport. Micros are actually the large busses that we see in American cities. The smaller busses are named as “Combis” which are vans having around 15 seats.

Travel by micro or combo is quite common in Lima but with a relatively loose management. There are no maps available nor departure schedules but all goes well with the pleasure of the driver of the vehicle owner. The drivers are too, not well trained and they can argue even on place to drop a passenger. This causes number of accidents as well when they allow a passenger to disembark in middle of the road too. There are some official route maps for micro (bus) system but who cares. Traveling by this public transport system is altogether an adventure.

Taxi in Lima is a good alternative but taxi drivers are somewhat from special part of the planet. They can be helpful and rude at the same time, all depends on his mood. One needs to speak Spanish to tell where one wants to go and against what kind of money. The passenger is recommended to argue and negotiate the fare and start with full understanding if the passenger is expects to make a stopover at some point. Everybody needs a good driver but at the same time every driver needs a good passenger too.  You can also easily book online for Peru airport shuttle for safe and reliable transportation.

The railway part in Lima is a different story. It was designed based on freight needs instead of passenger needs. Ferrocarril Central del Perú or FCC is the Central Railway started in history as old as 1851. It links capital Lima with port of Callao. It is not integrated even within itself and needs a complete separate chapter to be written.